‘Green Suits’ Book Cover Revealed

Cross-posted from The Green Suits:

Who likes waiting (for anything good)?

Many of you – excited about the impending release of Tailoring the Green Suit: Empowering Yourself for an Executive Career in the New Green Economy – have (emailed me/called me/sent me smoke signals/channeled me/social media messaged me) asking when the book would finally be available for purchase online and on booksellers’ shelves.

Unfortunately, I still do not have a definitive answer to that question. Schedules often take a backseat to quality assurance (as they should). And the production of this book has taken a bit longer than originally planned.

However, we are working aggressively to stay on track for a late March 2010 release. And, I think we will make it.

Meantime, is anybody game for a little show and share?

(Me! Me! Me! PICK ME!)

It is with great pride and excitement that at last we are able to reveal the book’s cover design. Check it out:

I would be remiss if I did not recognize the love of my life, my wife Marsha, for her extensive involvement in the cover design project. We think that the final result looks great and hope that you like it, too.

So the final countdown to book release begins. And now I ask:

Are you ready to tailor your Green Suit?

Book cover ©2010, Dan Smolen.

Are Green MBAs Ready for Green Business?

Cross-posted from The Green Suits:

For several years, I have written about the critical importance of green business training and education.

The C-Level’s demand for well-trained and properly educated green business executives is urgent. More companies are seeking talent that can ably manage the triple-bottom-line (people, planet, profits).

But are the institutions awarding so-called Green MBAs yielding such well-prepared talent? Ford Motor Company’s manager of social sustainability, David Berdish, is not convinced that they are.

In his post for GreenBiz.com, Berdish writes that:

Business schools are very good at asking students the hard questions – for example, how would marketing, IT, and operational functions work together to reduce a company’s energy consumption.

Additionally, (we are) not so good at asking students what the questions should be, in the first place, or how the systems within or outside a business support or conflict with a company’s mission and goals.

In other words, according to Berdish, business schools are highly capable at posing theoretical questions. Hoever, they are not as well-equipped at exploring the dynamic real-world complexities of sustainability, and more troubling, are not immune to “greenwashing.”

Berdish believes that business schools need to toss the “business as usual” mindset and adopt a style of instruction that more-fully prepares students for the complex set of challenges they will face when balancing the triple-bottom-line.

Will This Be Green Marketing’s Breakout Year?

Cross-posted from The Green Suits:

Environmental Leader has partnered with MediaBuyerPlanner to study Green Marketing to determine if it is ephemeral (or here to stay).

Based on the study’s key findings, it looks like Green Marketing has got legs. Specifically:

• 82% of respondents indicated they expect to spend more on green marketing in the future. Among manufacturers, that number is significantly higher. At least half, if not more, of respondents plan to engage in online marketing efforts in the future.
• 28% of marketers themselves think green marketing is more effective than other marketing messages, compared to 6% of marketers who think it is less effective. Management is even more optimistic, with 46% of them indicating a belief that green marketing is more efficacious. Just 23% of those in operations think green marketing is more effective.
• Companies with smaller marketing budgets tend to spend more on green marketing. Firms with a marketing budget of under $250,000 spend just over 26% on green marketing, while those with budgets of more than $50 million spend 6% on green marketing.

The most popular medium for green marketing was the Internet, with

• 74.2% of respondents having spent money online, followed by
• Print (49.8%
• Direct (40%)
• Outdoor (7%)
• Radio and TV (7%)
• Mobile (6%)

• 29% of marketers with budgets between $10 million and $50 million, and 25% of those with budgets of more than $50 million, used outdoor, compared to 7.3% for all marketers.

About half of companies reported that they are consciously taking steps to become more green. The most popular actions are:

• Conserving energy in operations, at 59%
• Changing products to reflect greener values (such as changing ingredients, packaging or intended use), at 54%

• And, nearly half of respondents said the decision-makers at their companies hold green marketing in high regard, compared to just 15% who hold it in low regard. Companies with decision-makers who have a low regard for green marketing tend to be those with the larger marketing budgets between $10 million and $50 million per year, where more than a quarter indicated that their decision-makers held green marketing in low regard. Smaller companies, concludes the report, may believe green marketing to be more effective than larger companies do.

More green marketing will translate to more consumer spending via green marketing channels. More consumer spending via green channels likely means larger green marketing budgets. And we hope that larger green marketing budgets will lead to a big spike in green marketing executive hiring.

One would hope. So, let’s all keep a good thought!

Create Your Own Advisory Board

Cross-posted at Sturdy Roots Blog.

Earlier today, I had a very interesting phone call with a bright, highly enthusiastic (fire-in-the-belly) new business development executive. His familiarity with the information technology space is excellent. And so too is his skill at staging successful consultative processes and converting his multi-million-dollar new business prospects to sale.

What company wouldn’t want to hire this new business sales executive?

Problem is, the executive is burned out on the I/T space and he wants out. He tells me he would like nothing more than to pivot to selling green business products and services; while he has the passion for making the planet a better place to live, he knows he has neither the familiarity nor the contact base in the green space to be successful.

We all know that in this economy, the few hiring managers that have open assignments want spot-on matches to the job spec. Even if this talented sales executive has – several times over – built multi-million-dollar information technology business portfolios from scratch, his having no prior experience in the green business space may be a non-starter…

…or is it?

After listening to this executive’s concerns, I offered up an idea for him to consider:

Right now, there are tens of thousands of entrepreneurs in the world seeking seed-investment capital to start new businesses. And while the venture’s partners may be top-notch no management team completely possesses all of the familiarities an investor wants to see before cutting that first check. So entrepreneurs often mitigate the cavities in their business plans by founding an industry advisory board made up of business leaders – skilled in the art – to counsel the management team on best business practices, alert them to competitive developments or fast-moving opportunities, and help their enterprise establish a strong and unique value proposition and long-term success.

I said to this executive, think of yourself as a new business enterprise. If you know you aren’t fully versed in green business, then why not create your own advisory board to shorten your learning curve, get fully-familiar (faster) with best-practices and next-practices, and help establish the-most solid relationships with potential client-prospects.

If we think of ourselves not as executives but as entrepreneurs, we stand a greater chance of achieving our goals; that is especially the case in difficult economic times such as these. By treating his “pivot” into green business like a new venture, the executive will bridge the all-too-common gap between will and skill.

Whether between jobs or employed in a company or market space that no longer inspires, consider establishing your own advisory board to speed your transition to a career in green business.

These times call for bold action. Go for it!

Is It Time to Revise Your CV or Résumé? Absolutely!

Whether you are gainfully employed at a company with sound financial footing or a recent addition to the ranks of the in-between-assignments cohort, now is the time to get that curriculum vitae (CV) or résumé of yours updated and built-for-speed.

When it comes to offering advice on drafting and revising such things, we executive recruiters are like a gathering of rabbis: as the old joke goes, ask 4 of us what we of think of your résumé and we’ll respond with 5 opinions.

Over the years, I’ve read through tens of thousands of  résumés and have become adept as separating the wheat from the chaff. Here are 5 insights that I believe you should keep in mind as you write, or rewrite your résumé:

1. Size doesn’t matter. I am often asked, “should I limit the résumé to 2 or 3 pages?  The answer is that it should be as long as it needs to be, but no longer…and as concise as it needs to be but no shorter. I’ve seen truly outstanding résumés that take up only 1 or 2 pages while others take up 4 pages. The long and the short of it that first you need to balance your career accomplishments and chronology, then determine how long or short the document should be.
2. Metrics! Metrics! Metrics! If the mantra of real estate brokers is Location! Location Location! then Metrics! Metrics Metrics! should be the mantra of hiring managers and executive recruiters. A truly outstanding résumé will quantify your professional career by answering questions such as these: how much new business sales revenue did you generate last year?; what was the percentage increase over “bogie” (budgeted revenue)?; how large a budget did you manage?; how much money did you save your company?; how many former clients were you able to re-activate and how much have they spent?; etc.  
3. Aim for high impact. Your first job is to grab the attention of the bleary-eyed hiring manager. Your second job is to get him or her to actually read your résumé and not put it back in the stack. The best résumés telegraph the executive’s unique value proposition, and make excellent use of blocked sections with bullet points, boldface and italicized characters. Further, I’ve seen excellent use of a second color to call out truly exceptional accomplishments. But if you do use color, avoid any hue that runs hot (especially red).
4. Consider adapting to a new out-of-the-box format. VisualCV merges the traditional résumé and the Web 2.0 world, allowing executives to share supportive graphic content such as slides, performance charts and company logos (with hyperlinks)…EVEN VIDEO. The service is free to executives and certainly worth your consideration.
5. Last, SPELL-CHECK! I often find that résumés of senior executives tend to have more typos than the ones from middle-management. I’ve seen some high-flying executives on the fast track for a great job drop from 30,000 feet (metaphorically-speaking) because of one or several typos in their all-important document.

Don’t have the time to revise your CV? Or do you prefer that someone else take a stab at it? Then contact a writing and revision resource like CVrite, which will turn your dull doc into something dazzling. I know well and respect very much the management of this firm; they are seasoned executive recruiters that know what it takes to maximize the effectiveness of your CV or résumé.

Now, get to work!

Are We There, Yet?

In other words, is this: a) downturn, b) recession, c) economic calamity almost over?

Lately, this is a question recruiters get asked a lot.

Unfortunately, I am no economist, so I cannot say with any semblance of authority or certainty that we are at the beginning of the end of this long, long, national nightmare.

But let’s face it: we’re all so impatient, looking for any sign of light at the end of the tunnel. Could economic data or trends we are hearing about on the news foretell that we have gotten through the worst?

Or are we seeing mirages?

Just in the past week we learned that:

• The stock market had a pretty good run up in March. After months of playing rope-a-dope, securities trading on the Street had a pretty good string of positive trading days. But could volatility return? People I know that know a lot more than I know say that 3 or more months of stability are needed before The Street will feel comfortable with the notion that the worst has passed. So, for now, institutional market traders may continue ratcheting up share prices to take short-term profits, but be assured that they are still looking for the bottom.
• Inventories are at there lowest levels in years. So, one might think that manufacturers and retailers may start ordering again and soon. Well…maybe they will or maybe they won’t. 
• Wells Fargo reports record quarterly profits. Great! But is this a sign that one of the largest commercial banks in the U.S. has found level footing, or are Wells Fargo’s profits the result of millions of consumers running up the balances on their Wells Fargo credit cards? Again, hard to say if this is a reliable sign.

But, these 2 things I DO KNOW:

• Hiring is a lagging indicator; typically, it is one of the last areas to witness improvement. So if you are out-of-work, or looking for a better job, expect that things will take twice or maybe three times as long. Use your time now to investigate new opportunities while seeking knowledge (or taking professional courses) to improve your value with your next employer.
• And, we need to hear about as much good news as possible. Once consumers put away the Maalox and feel better about the future, then hopefully they will start spending, again; banks will start lending to businesses; bank balance sheets will stabilize and black ink will replace red; factory orders will rise; and, more of us currently out-of-pocket will again earn paychecks.

Let’s all keep a good thought that the light some of us see means the end of the tunnel is near.

And to those who celebrate, may we wish you a Happy Easter!

Chief Sustainability Officer: Bright Green Job in a Dull Gray Economy?

Several months ago, Sturdy Roots Blog reported on the rise of The Chief Green Officer. Now, the NY Times’ Green Inc. blog reports that:

Amid mounting job woes, at least one position seems to be gaining currency: chief sustainability officer.

Read the Green Inc. blog post here.

What About Green Executive Jobs?

Twelve months ago, many of us thought that by now – February 2009 – we’d all be happy as clams discovering new job opportunities for green executive talent, or professionals looking to steer their non-green careers towards green marketing, green/clean tech, and other sustainable business sectors.

In February 2008, I joined other green business types in believing the signs looked oh-so-promising: ratcheted-up interest in green investment amongst venture capitalists; colleges and universities scrambling to develop in-demand green business curriculum and degree programs; and hiring managers discovering that green executives often made the best hires (and quickly adding sustainability and corporate responsibility practices to entice them).

The near future, most of us thought, looked awesome!

But to paraphrase Fred Willard in the movie A Mighty Wind:

Wha’ Happened?

Executive recruiters are often reliable bellwethers of the economy. We sense hiring trends weeks, sometimes months, before the mainstream media make the same discovery.

Unfortunately, the short-term hiring forecasts look pretty bleak. This week alone, I experienced a big spike in phone calls and email from aggrieved executives. In a repeat of what happened last month, I fear the economy is getting ready to shed hundreds of thousands more professionals.

Adding insult to injury, hiring in some business sectors has ground to a halt.

And what about green executive jobs? Have bleak employment forecasts turned green to gray?

To the readers of this blog and all others interested in green executive jobs, I say it’s time to take a deep breath. The plethora of green jobs we thought would be here in 2009 may not materialize until 2010 or 2011.

Meantime – while we strive to stabilize the economy and start hiring, again – we should focus our energies on learning, planning, and…dreaming.

And we’re eager to know how you’d like to empower yourself for your future great green business career. If you don’t mind, please answer these survey questions:

If we missed something, please add a comment to this post. Your interests matter!

We’re going to get through this. I promise!

Dan Smolen Direct Search, LLC – Executive Search for Green Business, Direct/Interactive Marketing And Consumer Insights

Dan Smolen Direct Search, LLC is an executive search firm specializing in the green business, direct/interactive marketing, and consumer insights industries.

For inquiries:

Washington, D.C.
p: +1 703 835 9900       f: +1 703 835 9966
London:
p: +44 20 3356 8575
email: info@dansmolen.com
twitter: www.twitter.com/dansmolen

 

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